Origin: Palestine | Germany | Fiction | Director: various directors | 57 minutes

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Suspended Time

by Ahmed Abu Nasser, Mohammed Abu Nasser, Assem Nasser, Amin Nayfeh, Alaa Al Ali, Yazan Khalil, Asma Ghanem, Muhannad Salahat, Ayman Azraq, Mahdi Fleifel

2013 | DocumentaryDramaVideo art | 57 min

Suspended Time is a film program comprised of 9 short films by 9 Palestinian filmmakers and artists looking back at the 20 years that followed the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The spectrum of films reflect, on the one hand, the geographical dispersal and fragmentation of Palestinians and, on the other, the diversity of the Accords' consequences on the various aspects of Palestinians' lived experience. This work is a montage of confined spaces, physical and mental, handshakes, journeys, sounds and time.

In the article "The Day After," Edward Said provided an immediate and very sombre reading of the Oslo Agreement signed in September 1993. He begins with the reading of the theatrics of the signing ceremony itself, and moves on to declare that the entire agreement is the suspension of most of Palestinians' rights. After 20 years of the signing, this suspension has created a confusing and distraught present in the lives of Palestinians.
How can one dwell in the today and produce images that contain a potential
for standing as historical reference? Images that feed on a point in history that acts as both beginning and end, and the resonance of this political rupture that we live today. Suspended Time is a film comprised of nine short films. It is a "montage" of impressions, reflections and products of imagination by nine filmmakers and artists. It is a montage of confined spaces, physical and mental. handshakes. journeys. sound, and time.

The films, which were selected as part of an open call in late summer 2013
and produced by Idioms Films, are:

Apartment 10/14, by Tarzan and Arab Nasser 8 min.
Synopsis: It's his birthday. While waiting for her to arrive, he imagines the moment when he first sees her. What will her gift be? As he shifts between a dream and reality he receives a visit by a strange old man.
About the Filmmaker: Budding filmmakers and identical twin brothers Tarzan
and Arab Nasser, real names Ahmed and Mohamed Abu Nasser, were born in 1988 in Gaza. After they graduated from Al-Aqsa University with a BA degree in Fine Arts, the brothers began to develop their filmic works. In 2010, Tarzan and Arab received the A. M. Qattan Foundation's prestigious Young Artist of the Year Award for their project Gazawood. They co-founded with Rashid
Abdelhamid, a Palestinian architect and designer, "Made in Palestine Project" an independent arts initiative to create and promote contemporary visual art with a focus on Palestine. Their short film "Condom Lead" was competing in the short film competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. They are currently developing a number of film projects.

From Ramallah, by Assem Nasser
Synopsis: A document written in 1922 by a British military governor in Mandatory Palestine explains the reasons for choosing the particular location for building a prison for the Palestinian revolutionaries. Today the Palestinian Authority presidential compound known as the Moqataa stands in that very same location.
The legend has it that a Roman woman was running the largest brothel in the
region that stood where today's Moqataa is. The Roman army commanders would meet there and discuss army matters. Eventually, the mistress and the women of the brothel learned all the army secrets. The Roman governor ordered the brothel to be destroyed and all the women were brutally killed. The legend goes on to say that for a long time shrieks and voices could be heard coming out of the site of the massacre. No one dared to go near.
About the Filmmaker: Asem Naser is a student of visual arts at the International Art Academy Ramallah. Over the years he has worked as a photographer and graphic designer. His works begin from personal, but universal questions, and challenge all that is sacred so as to reveal a small part of the truth, which for most of the time is grotesque. His works are often narrative, and deal with legends as mirrors of all the unspoken corners of reality. Visually, he juxtaposes the narrative with abstract images in order to place the audience within the world of the legends.

Interference, by Amin Nayfeh
Synopsis: In the midst of the Second Intifada. Malik is kept captive in his room by his family in order to study. To escape this oppression he finds comfort in two simple habits: listening to the radio and secretly observing his beautiful neighbor.
About the Filmmaker: Ameen Nayfeh was born in Palestine in 1988 and spent his formative years moving between Jordan and Palestine. Despite an early interest in filmmaking, in 2010 he earned his B.S. in Nursing from A-Quds University in East Jerusalem. Two years later, he earned a Producing degree from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Jordan determined to produce and create films that bring genuine stories from the region.

Journey of a Sofa, by Alaa al Ali
Synopsis: To transport a newly bought sofa to your home is an easy task. In most parts of the world at least. In a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, this task transforms itself into a Sisyphean journey revealing the complexities and absurdities of the everyday life in the Shatila camp in Lebanon.
About the Filmmaker: Alaa Al Ali is a writer, filmmaker and multimedia artist from Palestinian origin. He was born and lives in Shatila, a refugee camp in Lebanon. Alali worked with local and international artists in making films and multimedia works, with focus on Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.

Leaving Oslo, by Yazan Khalili
Synopsis: He returned in 1994, with the first PLO returnees that were allowed to come back after the signing of the Oslo Accords. He hasn't been back since he left in 1968, when he fled to Jordan. He wrote me a letter that day, telling me how happy he was to return. He wrote how he misses his city, the streets of his childhood, his family, his friends. He wrote how angry he was to be checked by an Israeli soldier, to see an Israeli flag so close that he had to cover his eyes with his hands so he doesn't see it. He told me how sad he was to return with this half won victory. His dream to return fulfilled, his dream for freedom postponed.
Twenty years from that day, I'm leaving. I don't want to stay in this half dream. I want to leave his failed victory. This land that has been cursed with peace processes, with dreams blocked by checkpoints and frustration.
About the Filmmaker: Born in Syria 1981, Yazan Khalili is an architect, artist and cultural producer who works and lives in and out of Palestine.
His art practice explores the relationship between the social and spatial elements of the built environment and the greater landscape. He is a founding member of Zan Design Studio, established in 2005, and was an artist-in-residence at the Delfina Foundation, London, in 2008. Khalili's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including Sharjah Biennial XI (2013). #ComeTogether, Edge of Arabia, London (2012). The Future of a Promise, Venice Biennale, Italy (2011). The Jerusalem Show, Al Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem (2010, 2011). His writings and photography have been published in print and online publications such as Class and Race, Manifesta Journal, Frieze and Ibraaz.

Long War, by Asma Ghanem
Synopsis: Long War interprets the repetition of political speeches by a very simple process of repetitive recording, replaying and re-recording a part of an interview made with Yasser Arafat in 1991. As the image and sound slowly mutate, we arrive to the final point, the Oslo Accords.
About the Filmmaker: Asma Ghannem, born and raised in Damascus (Syria), currently lives and works in Ramallah, occupied Palestine. In 2013 she earned a BA degree in Visual Arts from the International Academy of Art - Palestine. In her work she explores that space between reality and illusion and its representation. Asma employs imagination to experiment with our perception of objects and concepts that surround us in our every day life.
She works with photography, sound and film.

Message to Obama, by Muhannad Salahat
Synopsis: In a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, two boys decide to send a message to the American president Barak Obama through his Facebook page.
They ask him, as the president of the United States, to intervene and end the siege on the Gaza Strip, and they invite him and his wife to visit the strip and witness people's hardships there. But they never received a response. So they decide to use a small video camera to record a very angry video message from the people of the camp addressed to Barak Obama.
About the Filmmaker: Muhannad Salahat is a Palestinian filmmaker, journalist and writer currently based in Stockholm, Sweden. Since 2011 he has been working as a freelance filmmaker in Stockholm where he works with a number of Swedish film and media companies. He wrote scripts for a number of fiction and documentary films, and TV series. Salahat works as a consultant for a number of media organisations in the Arab world.

Oslo Syndrome, by Ayman Azraq
Synopsis: Year 2013 brought the Oslo Agreement to the spotlight all over. It brought me back to 20 years ago, when I had a dream now lost. This dream
haunts me again. I feel as if I'm sitting in a train station watching trains and people come and go. They all have a destination to reach as I wait for a train that might never arrive.
About the Filmmaker: Ayman Azraq is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker, born and raised in Bethlehem. He earned his MA degree in Fine Arts from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts in Oslo where he currently lives and works. Since 2002 he had worked as an editor, director and cameraman in multiple film projects. His short film "The Passport" was screened at the National Museum of Cinema in Turin (Italy), Cologne International Video Art Festival (Germany), among other places. His video and photography installation You From Now On Are Not Yourself was screened in venues in Spain, Norway, Denmark and the Gaza Strip. In 2012 he was an artist in residency in UNIDEE - University of Ideas at the Cittadellarte - Fondazione
Pistoletto in Biella (Italy), where he produced Lets Talk About Wome and Football, a performance collaboration between the locals of Biella and other artists in residency.

Twenty Handshakes for Peace, by Mahdi Fleifel
Synopsis: "I remember the handshake very clearly. My dad recorded the ceremony on video and would play it over and over again. He could not believe what had happened. In fact, none of us could. One time he threw his shoe at the TV and shouted so loud, the next-door neighbours complained about him." Listing to the last interview with Edward Said while watching the ceremony, made me realize the father's anger was because chairman Arafat was the first one to reach out his hand.
About the Filmmaker: Mahdi Fleifel is a Danish filmmaker of Palestinian origins. Born in Dubai, he was raised in the Ain El-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon and later in the suburbs of Elsinore, Denmark.He began filmmaking at an early age - a hobby he picked up from his father's obsession with video cameras. Fleifel studied at the NFTS in England under directors Udayan Prasad, Ian Sellar and Stephen Frears. His first-year film, Arafat & I, screened in many international festivals and won prizes in Romania, Italy and the Czech Republic. In 2010 Fleifel and Irish producer Patrick Campbell set up the London-based Nakba FilmWorks through which they released Fleifel's autobiographical feature A World Not Ours. The film is currently on the festival circuit, the film has received multiple awards in Brussels, Krakow, Reykjavik and Abu Dhabi, and was the recipient of the Peace Film Award at the Berlinale 2013.

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